


A Saturday For Misfits

by OriginalWeird



Category: N.E.R.D.S. - Michael Buckley
Genre: Breakfast Club AU, F/M, This Might Be Terrible I Can't Tell Anymore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 10:25:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18618736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalWeird/pseuds/OriginalWeird
Summary: There's so many universes out there. Sometimes something like that makes you feel small. But they could be anything, so they do. They will. They are.





	A Saturday For Misfits

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NerdyNobody](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NerdyNobody/gifts).



Saturday, March 24th  
Hackers will be expelled, claims the sign in the computer lab. The one guy in the school who knows how to hack knows better than to boast, so he ignores this empty threat. His life goes on. 

Dear Ms. Dove,   
We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But, we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But, what we found out is that each one of us is: a brain…and an athlete…and a basket case…a princess…and a criminal. Does that answer your question? 

Matilda Choi climbs out of her mother's car at about two past seven, the last lines of the Mother of All Lectures still ringing in her ears. Why did she have to be the good kid? Oh yeah, the only girl had to set a good example, despite being the youngest. 

It was easier to just keep her mouth shut. 

All the same, she tries to go to the front of the car, to tell her mom she loves her. The car speeds away before she gets to the window. 

She huffs, blows her fringe out of her eyes, and marches up to the door.

Duncan Dewey blows past her, clutching a textbook behind his lunchbox. His sister, still upset about having to drop him off, loudly blows a raspberry at his back. He's determined to make something of his Saturday, and that means studying for his geography test. As he walks down the hallway, he struggles to balance his lunchbox on his shoulder while he shoves the textbook under his jumper. 

Jackson Jones shoves him out of the way as he strides past, a smirk on his face. He's still the king of this school, even if it's close to empty now. His braces half-catch the light and he slaps his hand over his mouth. Slowly, he keeps going, cautious, smirking with his mouth closed.

Ruby Peet falls into step next to him, her carefully flat-ironed hair unmoving on her back, her contact lenses making her eyes ever-so-slightly too shiny. Her brother's been crying all night-her shiny eyes have bags under them. They're both silent as they take two of the three seats at the front left table, the seats they take in every class. Popularity is made up of structure and pattern, and nothing is an excuse to break those patterns. Nothing ever. 

Silent minutes flicker past. It's ten past nine when he bursts into the library, knocking everything off the desk with one outstretched arm, shoving a few of these items into his pockets. Julio 'Flinch' Escala's got a reputation to uphold too, and so he marches up to where Duncan's sitting-right behind Ruby and Jackson-and stares at him over the top of his aviators. Duncan moves. He doesn't want a fight. He understands the social structure, and he's so very close to the bottom of it, according to the pyramid he constructed. 

Flinch sits down on the desk itself and pulls a chocolate bar out of a different pocket. He starts eating it as Ms Dove walks into the room, a too-big smile perched on her face. 

"Hello, chickies!"

She's as sweet as sugar, stepping over a broken paperweight with a giggle and a hop. 

"I'm ever so glad I get to spend more time with you! But I'm afraid I can't spend my whole day in the library-I have six meetings pencilled in, isn't that unfortunate?"

Flinch scoffs around a mouthful of chocolate. The smile disappears.

"Ah. My bad egg."

Before Flinch can shoot anything back, Ruby raises her hand, cautious-she'll abide by rules until she dies, they're keeping the fragile fabric of her personal universe together. But Ms Dove is still staring at Flinch, so she pipes up. She's quiet about it, but she's got to ask her questions-how else will she find the answers?

"Ms Dove? I really don't think I belong here. I know it's detention and all, but I really think I could serve some other punishment-one that doesn't involve the whole. Um. Giving up a Saturday?"

Ms Dove doesn't so much as glance in the girl's direction. She stares behind her instead, refusing to take her focus off her bad egg. 

"It's seven-oh-six, chickies. You won't be leaving for hours. You've got plenty of time to see the error-oopsie, errors in a few cases, hmmm? Of your ways."

Flinch opens his mouth and shows the contents-a half-chewed chocolate bar-to all who will look. Ms Dove makes a tutting noise, the noise of a disapproving pigeon. 

"Sorry chickies, but they'll be no talking, no moving, no sleeping. But don't worry! Mama Hen's got a special activity for all of you! How fun!"

She claps. Duncan wonders half-absently if it's a page of colouring in, giving Ms Dove's general attitude towards literally everyone under twenty.

"You're going to write an essay for me, about who you think you are! Of course, feel free to add in as many embellishments as you wish-within reason, of course. I'm always happy to read about princesses and ninjas, but don't go too far. No less than a thousand words, no more than ten-thousand that is, chickies. There's paper and pens and pencils on the front desk-oh, on the floor. I'm sure none of the crayons are broken, but you can still use a broken crayon! You just have to sharpen it a little more."

She's staring at Flinch again. Duncan notes the many colours scattered around the normal pens and leads. He nods to himself, his suspicions confirmed.

"Is this a test?"

Flinch's words are stifled by the packet of chips he's shoving down his throat. Just as well Ms Dove ignores him-any reaction would be negative.

"And I do mean essay, even if pictures are worth a thousand words-that said, feel free to draw me a nice picture if you do feel like it! My office is right across that hall, and I'm going to leave that door open through all my meetings, just to keep an ear on you chickies!" 

"Ms Dove, can I ask a question? Just quickly, seeing as I'm a regular visitor and all?"

"I don't see why not."

"Why are you allowed out of your enclosure at the zoo so often? It's getting ridiculous."

"I'll be sure to look into that further next Saturday, Mr Escala. Does that work for you?"

"Oh, so well, ma'am."

"Do not mess with the bull, young man. You'll get the horns."

Jackson feels himself taken back to elementary, the principal towering over him, telling him he'll never amount to anything. He chases it out of his mind. The bull's gone now. He's all good. 

Ms Dove flutters out of the room. Flinch pulls another chocolate bar from his bottomless pockets and throws his trash to the floor.

Duncan resolves to blow through the essay as quickly as possible and then start studying. Matilda fixes her sights on the back of his head. (Will he get creeped out like everyone else does when she does this?) Duncan pulls his own pen, his own notepad, from his lunchbox. Jackson and Ruby do approximately nothing. What's the popular protocol when in detention? They don't know.

Duncan mutters to himself. He always does when he's thinking. He thinks he needs some kind of robot to follow him around and talk to him. He's gonna invent one. Someday. 

"Who…am I?"

He fiddles with the pen. Then it's hanging off his bottom lip. He smiles to himself, like he's alone in his room, like no-one's staring at him. 

Everyone is staring at him.

"I am a walrus."

He snickers, then catches three judging glares coming in from the right. He coughs and starts scribbling words. He thinks he's a good, smart kid, and that's a good starting point. 

Flinch is getting bored. He's got a limited supply of chocolate, and he doesn't want to eat it all before ten. He wads up his latest wrapper and chucks it at the back of Jackson's head. It hits. The king of the school whirs around, indignant.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Flinch ignores him and starts humming a tune. Jackson turns back around, slowly. He doesn't trust this kid. For a few beats, there's only Flinch's humming and the scratching of Duncan's pen. Then-

"Awh hell!"

Jackson bothers to huff and turn to answer Flinch's exclamation. 

"What is it?"

"What if we have to go to the bathroom?"

No-one sees fit to answer him. He's still bored.

"Hey. Hey paste-eater."

Duncan half-glances up. 

"How 'bout you go close that door, huh? We could really get this party started then."

Jackson's face wrinkles up. Duncan's confused.

"But…she told us not to."

"Hey, man, just back off him, won't ya?"

"I dunno, man, you gonna close that door?"

Jackson gets out of his seat so he towers over the still-sitting Flinch.

"If you make me lose your temper, I'll-I'll…"

"You'll what, Sporto?"

Flinch drags himself up so he's standing on the table, gazing at the top of a shock of over-gelled hair. Jackson finds himself angling his head back awkwardly to continue staring at his face.

"I'll…I'll totally total you!"

This is not a piece of slang the King of the School has ever used before this moment. He's never going to use it again. He doesn't have a clue where it's come from. Flinch thinks it's funny.

"Totally?"

The jock has dug his grave, so now he lies in it.

"Totally."

Little Miss Perfect-well, at least according to the sharpie scrawled across the L block bathrooms-sees a weakness in the shield of invulnerability constructed by the popular status she works so hard to maintain. She's going to have to intervene.

Gosh, she hates intervening.

"Will you shut up? Nobody is interested!"

Duncan can no longer concentrate. Should he-he's gonna talk.

"Guys? Hate to interrupt, but could we maybe just write our papers?"

The only person listening is Matilda. The other three are locked in a standoff. 

"Just because you're always here, it doesn't mean you can just make up your own rules!"

"It's a free count-"

"Jackson, ignore him!"

Flinch drops back down so he's sitting on the table again.

"Hey, let's talk about you guys, catch up on all the juicy gossip. Two of you dating, or is Hair Gel still with the hot older girl who was-what was the excuse-touring the country winning beauty pageants?"

Jackson glowers at the desk. Ruby mutters a response through clenched teeth.

"Go to hell."

Flinch rolls himself off the desk, into the aisle, then springs up and makes his way over to the library's stairway.

"Seriously, someone better close that door, or this party 'll never kick off."

"We're really supposed to be writing, guys."

"Ah, writing's no fun. Hey Sporto, what's your idea of a good time?"

"There are four other people in this room, man, so-"

"Sporto can count! It's a damn miracle! Smartest guy on the football team, I'm telling ya-!"

"GO TO HELL, FLINCH. You're a nothing anyway. You're a nobody."

A pause.

"You disappeared right now, nobody but your delinquent friends would miss you. You barely exist at this school."

A second pause. Longer, this time.

"Well, guess I better join the football team."

The room collectively snorts.

"I'm serious! I better get in on all the stuff that matters-student council, wrestling, hockey, all the important things."

Duncan hits a lull in his writing and starts thinking out loud again.

"I'm in math club."

"Flinch, they wouldn't so much as let you in the door."

"And computer club."

"Well, I'll just have to sneak in, won't I? I couldn't miss out, that'd just be a travesty-"

"I'm thinking about joining physics, too."

Matilda frowns at the back of his head. The three off to his left turn to look at him. One of them bothers to gesture with a half-eaten chocolate bar before addressing him.

"What are you babbling on about?"

"You were all talking about clubs, so I thought I'd contribute. See, I'm in two clubs-in math, and in computer club, and I'm think about going to physics, and, well, I'm even the vice president of the computer club, so I thought I might just-"

"You thought wrong. Shut your mouth."

To his credit, the boy does, looking as if he has a great deal more talking to do. Flinch turns his attention back to the people sitting in front of him.

"Now tell me, would I matter anymore if I went to the math club? Why, would you go to the math club, dear braceface?"

Jackson scowls, then remembers to cover it with his hand.

"I wouldn't. You wouldn't. It's the wrong sort of club."

Ruby assists.

"We're talking about social clubs. Those sure aren't social clubs."

"Well, not to you, maybe, but to him-"

Flinch turns back to the shorter boy, who has bent back down over his paper and is miming writing. A smart move.

"Hey geekface!"

Duncan's head snaps up as Matilda's slams itself into her desk. The former answers the question, albeit in a more subdued manner than the earlier babbling counterpart. 

"Yes?"

"Do you think your clubs are social?"

Duncan Dewey tilts his head and thinks for a second, furrowing his brow.

"Well, yeah, I guess so. We talk to each other heaps, about problem-solving and new programs and-"

Flinch tunes out the rest of a decently lengthy speech and turns back to the popular people.

"There's your answer. They're plenty social."

Jackson, still covering his mouth, scowls more fiercely, the effect of which is utterly spoilt. 

"Well, doesn't matter, you don't stop being social with me the old bird's gonna come back in here and make me miss the next game!"

Flinch lets out a gasp of mock-tragedy and, in a Shakespeare-worthy manner, keels over backwards onto his desk.

"You'd miss a whole game? What the hell-"

He bothers to beat his fists on the desk at his sides, which creates a loud enough crash to warrant the stopping of Duncan's rant and Matilda to lift her head from her desk.

"-Is the world coming to?"

Jackson's face is turning red. He's still careful to keep his teeth out of view, even though that action turns more attention than the braces themselves, but he's yelling now. The delinquent has won, the jock is riled up.

"YOU WOULDN'T KNOW HOW IMPORTANT IT IS! YOU'D NEVER CARE! YOU'VE GOT NO GOALS! NO AMBITION! YOU'RE HOPELESS!"

"Oh, but I've got goals. I wanna be…"

His tone is light, but the tension in the air is so sharp Ruby coils back in her seat. Julio takes a single step towards Jackson, who has sprung to his feet.

"Just…"

Duncan mimes his writing frantically, so fast his pen flies out of his hand. He continues as if nothing has happened. Flinch steps again.

"Like…"

Matilda slithers out of her seat and sits on the floor under her desk. Jackson is actually shaking with rage now.

"You."

Flinch smiles, so innocently it's almost unbelievable, and reaches up a single hand, extends his pointer finger and taps the end of Jackson's nose.

"Boop."

He then jumps back, crashing into a desk as he spirals out of the way of Jackson's clumsy punch. Across the hall, Ms Dove looks up from the papers she's going over (and covering in bird-themed stickers). She clicks her tongue and mutters something about bad eggs under her breath. She then gets up, making sure the clicking of her heels echoes on the hall's floor.

Both Jackson and Flinch whirl back into their spots, and the clicking fades again. Flinch cackles like a madman, before springing up and running to the door, then begins fiddling with something there. If Duncan was still holding a pen, it would have dropped out of his grasp now, as he looks up and his mouth falls into a more-or-less perfect O.

"You're aren't supposed to be up there-"

Flinch is all giggles, on a trip of madness fuelled by a sugar high. A few noises that aren't really a part of any language anyone's bothered to write down are emitted, and then Flinch sing-songs back a reply in English, albeit very high, weird English.

"YOunG MAn, haVe yoU FinISHEd YoUR PApeR?"

Before any of them can reply, a single screw falls to the floor. Flinch scoops it up and shoves it into one of a million pockets, before positively twirling back to his desk. Everyone begins to yell at once. How could he do this/they'll get in so much trouble/he's got to put it back-he gets it. He's not going to, though, because here comes Ms Dove, so everyone just shut up.

And everyone does.

The door swings back open after its abrupt closing. Into the room steps a woman with a smile sweet enough to rot your teeth and a thunderstorm brewing right behind her eyes. 

"Now, Sugar."

The words should have been nice. They sound like the worse insult anyone's ever forced themselves to spit. 

"Why is this door closed?"

To the credit of these kids, they stick together and stay in silence.

"I know you did it."

The hellfire she was sending at Flinch probably would have made him…well, flinch…if he had been looking at her properly. Instead, he stares dead ahead, an innocent expression on his face. Ruby gulps but turns to the waiting she-demon.

"No, Ms Dove, the screw just fell out."

"Oh, chickie, you don't have to cover for the bad egg."

Jackson joins in.

"No, really Miss, we all saw it."

Duncan nods somewhat frantically. Flinch smirks.

"Sorry, the world's an imperfect place. Screws fall out all the time."

Ms Dove looks extremely unsatisfied with the response, but turns her attention to the door. She pulls it open and tries to wedge it into staying that way. It swings back the second she snatches her hand away, almost catching her foot. She lets out a noise that really sounds more like a squawk than anything else. She then swings it back open and storms out without another word. The silence is filled with Flinch's laughter before anyone can turn on him again. Then the laughter fades out, and the room is left to sit in silence. 

The kids in said attempt to entertain themselves. Duncan cracks open the textbook he snuck in and buries himself in it. Ruby and Jackson talk to each other, too quiet for Flinch to eavesdrop on, so he starts to create a mountain from the seemingly endless supply of candy hidden on his person. Matilda draws a picture of her family, then scribbles over each of her brothers. 

Flinch buries his face within the mountain, knocking half of it off his desk, and then starts snoring. 

One by one, the rest of them drop off as well. They're all out cold within a half hour. 

When Ms Dove returns, she positively warbles out her message to the unconscious room.

"Lunchtime!"

Once she's pecked her way away from them, they pull their things out. Flinch begins consuming something that might resemble a sandwich if it wasn't made of marshmallows and sherbet. Ruby spreads a salad out in front of her. It's shiny and looks like it's been grabbed straight out of a commercial. Jackson opens the paper bag his brother packed him and tosses the zip-lock full of popcorn over his left shoulder before producing a sandwich. None of them bother to talk.

On the other side of the room, Matilda laments waking up so late she forgot to grab her lunch and Duncan pulls the sort of lunch you see on sitcoms with laugh tracks and lessons in every episode out of a box with a cartoon on it. Matilda gets out of her seat, walks over several desks like she's climbing up and down a set of stairs, and sits down in the chair next to him. She extends her hand and waits. 

After a few bites of PB and J with the crusts cut off, Duncan turns to her. She keeps looking at him. Somewhat awkwardly, he half-twists around and drops his apple into her palm. She turns back to the front of the room and takes a noisy bite.

She does not return to her original seat.

After Flinch has inhaled more candy then most would eat in a few months, he decides to hassle a market he's been leaving, more or less, undisturbed. He gets up and strides over to the boy trying to read through his textbook and eat at the same time.

A thermos is scooped up and twirled around by fingers shaking with a sugar buzz.

"What's in here, huh? Coffee? Soup?"

The smaller boy reaches up, knocking the textbook over as he does so, and grabs the offending container back. A slight girl halfway through a red delicious stops it from hitting the floor.

"It's glue, actually."

Flinch looks genuinely shocked. He really shouldn't be-he's one of the hundreds that's been calling the boy in front of him a paste-eater for what feels like eons, but he didn't believe the rumours were actually true--!

Correction; he didn't believe the rumours were true until he saw said boy crack open a thermos full of the stuff, sniff it like adults sniffed wine, and consume the contents with a spoon.

Three people are staring at the boy eating glue. The fourth is focusing on the apple. A beat passes, she finishes it and snaps her arm up in a reflexive gesture that sends the core up to hit the statue in the centre of the room. The thermos is packed away. The 'bad egg' takes his seat-well, his desk, again.

Ms Dove comes back in, holding what honestly looks like a sandwich fills with birdseed. 

"Oh, I thought I'd eat with all of you beautiful chickies…never mind!"

She spins on her heel, but Flinch calls after her before she can go back to her office. 

"Miss! Can we get drinks? I'm getting awfully dehydrated in here."

There are murmurs of agreement. The woman wrinkles her face up, but nods. The asker makes to leave his seat, but she clucks at him.

"Do you think I was hatched yesterday? No! You and you!"

Duncan and Matilda blink at the woman pointing at them.

"You can purchase drinks from the machine in the teacher's lounge."

She passes over a twenty-dollar bill. Duncan stares at it as if it's a foreign object. She bundles the pair out the door and point them in the right direction.

Duncan finds himself being shadowed as he walks in, purchases cokes for everyone, and then starts back. Matilda took the cans he made her carry, but she's silent, so he tries to prompt her into conversation. 

"So, come here often?"

Nothing.

"Uh, you gonna…you gonna say anything today?"

He jolts when she actually speaks up.

"Sure."

"Oh? Well, talk to me! What's your favourite movie? Why are you in here? You like computers?"

She strides right on ahead. His shoulders drop.

And he's blown it.

Back in the library, the drinks are emptied. Flinch reaches into his pocket and produces…nothing. A different pocket. No snacks. And a third. Not so much as a crumb.

Still jittery, he gives an almighty sigh. 

His sorrowful pantomime is noticed. Almost everyone turns away immediately. The girl who skulked back to the end of the rows pays attention, and once he's made a big show of the fact he's got no more food, she bothers to utter a full sentence.

"I've got more food in my locker."

The room stares at her.

She gets up and starts striding for the door. Flinch scrambles after her. A beat passes, then Duncan's after them too, for reasons he'd struggle to explain if you asked him in the moment. Jackson and Ruby look to each other for conformation, then following, faking nonchalance. They can't be seen missing out on things, even if they are apparently mass detention breakouts.

When the five stand in front of locker 448, Matilda steps forward and fiddles with the lock for a few seconds, and then steps back, a perfectly sad expression on her face.

"Oh…I guess I've forgotten my combination, sorry."

Duncan bites the inside of his cheek. Then he steps forward and starts spinning it-he's picked the thing before any of them have time to gasp. Matilda lets out a cackle that wouldn't be out of place in a horror movie's soundtrack and swings open the door to her brother's locker.

It takes a book sliding to the floor for any of the rest of them to notice anything out of place. Jackson scoops it up.

"Who the hell is Mobi Choi and why are we rooting through his locker?"

Matilda throws a packet of lifesavers over her left shoulder. Flinch dives for it. 

"Is he your brother or something?"

Sour cream and chives Pringles. Ruby catches them.

"Seriously-this isn't your locker, is it?"

Matilda hands him a packet of Oreos.

"I like how no-one wants to know how I learned to pick locks."

He gets liquorice allsorts to the face. Matilda keeps rummaging through the locker, throwing food, until she finds the item she has-evidently-been searching for. 

Said item, a notebook with a purple cover, is promptly stuffed into her sweater. The hallway is covered in loose papers and rotting fruit. The locker is almost empty. 

Before they can start gathering said items back, the tell-tale footsteps sound. The group stares at each other. The footsteps get closer.

Flinch takes charge.

"You guys go that way, I'll go this way."

There would be protest, but he sprints off, a sugar-fuelled blur. He starts singing something with a tune that suggests pop in a language none of the rest of them speak. 

He runs through halls, singing so loudly his throat starts hurting. She catches up to him as he stands in the cafeteria, arms filled with freeze-dried food.

"You wanna hear my excuse?"

"No. Follow me."

The rest of them have barely collected themselves, only just sprawled back into their seats, when Ms Dove marches in with the distraction, now sullen and silent. He picks up his jacket-his jacket with all the useless, empty pockets. Ms Dove clears her throat in a way you could easily compare to hacking up a worm. 

"I regret to inform you this young man will no longer be joining the rest of you."

Her voice is filled with giddy glee.

"Instead, he will sit in the supply closet while the rest of you complete your essay."

Nobody says a word. The woman half-huffs, like she was expecting applause, and the two leave, but not before Flinch throws a bar of chocolate over his shoulder like a bouquet at a wedding. Duncan catches it, and stares down at the peace offering like it'll explode if he looks away.

Flinch staggers backwards. The room he's been shoved into is small, it's dark, it's stupid. He doesn't want to be in here. He's sitting on the floor, and he feels stupid. He feels small. The principal towers over him. She shouldn't be doing that. 

"Finally."

She just smiles at him.

"Now tell me, boy. Are they proud?"

He tries to pull himself up. He can't.

"Are they? Are your parents proud? Is your brother proud?"

He half-recoils.

"Is your grandmother proud?"

He curls in on himself.

"You're making your little friends proud. Why aren't they here today? You aren't strong enough without your backup, are you? They skipped out on detention. Well, guess what?"

Her heel makes its way toward her face, only just stopping in time, clattering back.

"I'm in charge here. I'm the principal. I worked for this. I'm here…"

She steps forward. 

"Because I worked for it. You've never worked for anything. You'll never amount to anything. You are nothing."

Oh. So this is hopelessness.

"I will get you out of my school. You are the problem-you are the ringleader-I will destroy you. Good luck rotting away in the military school I will recommend to your grandmother when I see her next. Good luck, Mr. Escala."

She's in the doorway now. She slams the door shut.

He throws back his head and he howls.

Back in the library, Duncan holds onto the bar. It's melting in his hands, but despite Jackson's best efforts, it can't be pulled from him. Said jock leans over, breathing heavily. 

"It's like it's stuck to his goddamn hands."

Ruby bothers to snicker at him, then bites her lip. She's not supposed to snicker. Matilda is still sitting in the back of the room, and she's either refusing to pay attention or is doing a particularly good job of hiding it. In the background, a noise one might call bellowing is heard and a boy crashes to the ground. Flinch stands up and dusts himself off.

"Forgot my pencil. I miss anything?"

"How did you-"

"Why did-"

No response. 

Flinch takes his seat like he didn't just fall through the roof. After a few minutes of staring at him in mute shock, he makes a suggestion.

"You guys wanna talk, or something?"

Ruby manages to eke out a few words.

"What about?"

"Ah…well, whatever, really. Let's play a questions game!"

The questions game evidently warrants a change in scenery, because he gets up and swaggers his way over to the library's landing. The other four follow, albeit confusedly. Once they're all sitting in a circle, Duncan, hugging his knees, asks a question.

"So…who's starting?"

Flinch turns straight to Jackson.

"Hey, Mr. Perfect, you ever kissed a girl?"

"Huh? Yeah, of course-"

Ruby looks genuinely confused.

"Who?"

Jackson splutters.

"My…my girlfriend?"

"You have a girlfriend?"

"Oh. Uh. Yeah."

Ruby screws up her nose.

"Never seen you with her."

Jackson coughs, then turns to Duncan before he can be questioned further.

"Hey, what's your family like?"

Duncan's eyebrows furrow together.

"It's fine-I get on with my parents and stuff, I guess but we don't always see eye to eye-"

Flinch scoffs.

"Yeah, right. You are every parent's dream. I'd bet you've never argued with them once in your whole life."

"I have too!"

"As if."

"That's why I'm in here, y'know. Arguing."

"What happened?"

"Well…y'see…uh…"

"I knew it was a lie."

"It's not a lie! I don't lie. I-I argued with my sister. In the hall. And…and I hurt her."

The others lean forward, attention captured.

"I…I like experimenting. And I invented this thing-this tool, for my dad. It could respond to simple voice commands-he's a mechanic. A really good one. My sister-she was telling me…that I was a freak. That I didn't fit in. I am the odd one out. And I am. I…I always am."

Duncan lets out a gasp that might be close to a sob.

"So, I threw it at her. The tool. And I yelled a command. And it broke her nose."

Flinch has stopped smirking. 

"So…I'm grounded. I've gotta go to detention every single Saturday for months. And if my grades slip, I'll probably be disowned. We moved to this neighbourhood so kids would stop bullying me. But it's worse here. Back in my old town, I had some friends. Nobody talks to me here. My sister can't make a friend either, 'cause of me. It's all my fault. I…I don't want to be…I want to be normal. But I can't figure out how."

Jackson leans forward and puts his hand on the shorter boy's shaking shoulder.

"Normal isn't all it's cracked up to be. Believe me."

"Why the hell are you in here, Jones?"

"Well, Escala, because I'm a bully."

"Do tell."

"Alright."

Jackson leans back, and Matilda takes over Duncan-comforting as if she's been doing it her whole life.

"Well, there's this kid called Heathcliff."

Duncan looks up.

"He's in computer club with me."

"Yeah. Well, I sort of…after I got my braces, my dad and brother stopped…treating me the same. They said I'd gone soft. I wasn't a real man."

"Couldn't your mom stop them?"

"My mom's dead."

Flinch holds his hands up in surrender.

"Sorry."

"She died…a bit over a year ago, now. And so, I started beating kids up. Regain my whole…thing. Be cool. Like my brother. Like my dad. But I went too far. I…I gave him a concussion. Partial amnesia. People are calling him Screwball now."

Duncan looks horrified.

"It's just…it's been really hard. For all of us. Losing her. But I made a kid forget his parents. I don't-I can't-"

"You think that's bad?"

Flinch is now standing up. 

"I've lost both my parents. And my brother. It's just me and Mama Rosa, and I can't go a day without letting her down. Ms Dove decided I was bad, so I lived up to the expectations. I made bad friends, I made bad choices, I screwed up. I am screwed. My life is gonna be a train wreck. I'm flunking every class. The janitor's started covering for me, y'know-because I keep helping him out. I don't deserve that. Did you know the janitor at this school's a goddam war hero? But people like you make fun of his limp. You don't get to claim you're sorry. NOBODY GETS TO BE SORRY. YOU'RE MAKING LIVES NIGHTMARES, BUT YOU'RE REMORSEFUL NOW. YOU-YOU…"

He falls right over, on his knees.

"You gotta forgive me."

"…what?"

"You gotta forgive me, Jones. I'm the…I'm the one who told your brother about…about what you said about him. Y'know. I could take him any day of the week? I…I set it all in motion. I…I did it first. Don't blame yourself."

The quiet is suffocating.

"I don't blame you. Or me."

Flinch and Jackson are staring at each other again.

"Let's blame fate. Let's blame fate, and just be friends."

Ruby interrupts their truce.

"Well, I'm here because I smuggled my brother into maths by shoving him in my backpack."

It's such a ridiculous sentence they all start laughing, just laughing and laughing, on and on until they can't breathe. At the end of it, Jackson asks her why. Ruby smiles.

"Both my parents work full-time, and I've got a baby brother. I'm supposed to be babysitting right now, actually. The babysitter was sick on Tuesday, but when she called both my parents had already left. So, I thought I'd stay home. I couldn't, I had a math test. So, I took everything out of my backpack, and I put Noah, some toys, and a bottle in. Everything was going fine until he started crying."

"That's so stupid."

"Well, what did you do, ma'am?"

Matilda screws up her nose.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"No. I just needed to break into my brother's locker. He stole my diary, and I wanted it back. I told my mum I had detention, and nobody bothered to check anything. So, I'm all good."

"Now that's stupid."

There's an undeniable sense of friendship settling over the group. After a series of meaningless questions, Ruby asks Jackson;

"So, who's your girlfriend?"

"Well…I wasn't actually lying about the beauty queen."

Flinch scoffs at him.

"Yeah, you were. Drop it."

"Her name is Mindy. She's the best."

"We get it, we get it!"

"I'm not kidding! I have years of built up texts and emails and calls if you wanna-"

"Intense faking. Geez."

"Argh-well, she's gonna pick me up this afternoon, with my brother and his new girlfriend, will you believe me then?"

"When I see it!"

Matilda, who has been silent for a while now, bothers to speak up.

"Hey-if you pass me in the hall on Monday, Ruby, will you talk to me?"

"I…I don't know."

Duncan frowned at her.

"How could you not know?"

Jackson shrugs.

"I don't know either."

Flinch stares at them.

"What the hell?"

Matilda frowns at them.

"Are you just gonna…ignore us?"

Duncan continues for her.

"That's not fair. We've been…I thought we were friends now."

Jackson shrugs.

"Sorry, but…"

"But what?"

"We'd be kicked out of…we'd lose all of our friends."

"No, you wouldn't."

"You'd have us."

"Duncan, have you and your girlfriend had this mind-link thing going for a while? It's getting kind of creepy."

Flinch is stared at by both Duncan and Matilda.

"She's not my girlfriend."

"Why would you think that?"

Jackson raises his eyebrow and gestures to them.

Okay, maybe this does look a little bit…

Matilda is now resting her head in Duncan's lap, and he's playing with her hair. Neither of them are entirely sure how they ended up here, but they're here now, and to be honest, Matilda doesn't want to move her head, so she isn't going to, so everyone can just shut up. She sticks her tongue out at three individuals who are now snickering. 

"Well, wouldn't your friends care if you just started hanging out with us?"

"I don't really have any friends, Ruby."

"…oh."

"Me neither."

"All my friends are weird enough that they'll probably be overjoyed."

"Well…it's different for us."

"How?"

"We've…we've worked really hard to…become this popular."

"That's stupid."

Duncan and Flinch nod along with Matilda.

"If I give up, I'll go back to being bullied. I don't…I don't want to be bullied anymore."

Ruby's sentiment made more sense than the earlier one, at least to the others. 

"Well then, come hang out here sometimes."

Ruby is now furrowing her brows at Matilda. 

"Like…in the library?"

"Yeah."

"What?"

"Just say you're studying and come in here. Or if studying is too nerdy, you're in a group project and someone's forcing you to. The librarian is cool as hell. She's just stood there while I wrestled two of my brothers."

The group stares at her for a second.

"I won."

"I can vouch for the librarian thing. She's so calm she could deal with a rocket taking off in the middle of the library."

"Did you, at any point, launch a rocket in this library?"

Duncan's eyes drift toward a black mark on the ceiling.

"…no."

Ruby snorts in an entirely un-school-princess-like manner. Flinch gets up and walks over to the other room in the upper part of the library. 

"There's a record player up here. Hey Duncan, come pick this lock!"

About five minutes later, loud music was playing and several children were dancing badly.

You could only barely call Flinch's general writhing dancing. This music was not made for doing the Charlestown, or for headbanging, which was what Ruby and Matilda, respectively, were doing with it. Jackson has already fallen over twice, and Duncan's having trouble doing things that aren't laughing. The song fades out. 

Duncan voices an idea that's been rattling around his head.

"I think…that we should just write the one essay. For all of us."

They consider it.

"Will you do the actual working part? And we all sign it?"

"Yeah."

"Sounds good, but I've got places to be. Storage cupboard with my name on it."

And so, a letter is scribbled, proclaimed perfect, and then signed. Flinch goes back through the ceiling. Ruby turns to Matilda.

"Come on!"

"Where are we going?"

"Just come on!"

Once the two are away from the two boys still in the library, Matilda frowns.

"Hey, this isn't some kind of makeover thing, is it? 'Cause I like my face the way it is, thanks-"

"No, couldn't be further from it. Anyway, your boyfriend likes your face the way it is too-"

"He's not my boyfriend-"

"Shut up and pass me those tissues."

When the two girls re-join those playing tabletop football with pieces of crumpled-up paper, there are no gobsmacked, blown away, fallen-in-love faces. There's just two nods, and a simple comment.

"You look like you."

Ruby's hair has poofed its way into pigtails, her face is devoid of makeup, and most of her face is covered by a pair of thick glasses. She smiles so hard her face hurts and she and Matilda join the game.

Alone in the closet, Flinch begins work on a sort of mural-a drawing on the wall that's probably going to earn him a few more detentions. A minute before Ms Dove comes in and escorts him out, he's finished it. He steps back and admires his handiwork.

He thinks this picture captures them all pretty well. He signs it with the same word Duncan used on the bottom of their letter. He then walks straight out of the room, whistling, the second Ms Dove opens the door. 

She follows him, more than a little confused, to the library. He throws open the door before she can and strikes what can only be described as a pose. For some reason, they cheer him, then they've all gone. She walks into the room they've left in shambles and picks up the piece of paper left on a desk. Their letter to her. 

She reads the whole thing through, then places it back down. 

What does their sign-off mean?

Sincerely Yours,  
N.E.R.D.S.

They stand on the front steps. They're laughing together, but the moment feels bittersweet.

The first car pulls up, accompanied by the sounds of a baby crying. Ruby sighs and steps away.

"That's me. See you Monday!"

And she's gone, speeding away, the cries quieting as soon as she gets in the car. Then, there's a car covered in band stickers.

"Mum sent Marky?"

Duncan walks her up to said car, with minimal-okay, kind of a ridiculous level of-catcalling. 

"Hey-you don't have to sneak into detention to get me to pick lockers for you. I'll break into whatever, anytime."

She looks at him as if he's a completely different person then who he was this morning, then who he always has been.

"When did you get so cool?"

She darts forward and kisses the tip of his nose, then ducks away in case she's made a mistake. He's shell-shocked, but only for a split second. Then his arm is around her waist and they're sharing a proper, full-on kiss that causes her brother to wind down the window and start making threats. 

He still has a sappy grin on his face after she's completely gone and he's sitting with Jackson and Flinch again, both of whom are teasing him relentlessly. 

"Well, when's loverboy getting picked up?"

"Whenever his sister's boyfriend's car gets here."

When said sister's boyfriend's car gets here, it's blasting the sort of cool-guy radio that makes Flinch mock-cover his ears.

Tanisha leans out the window to yell at Duncan and Chaz backs her up by yelling at Duncan. The two boys shrug at each other before clambering into the backseat, Jackson taking the middle so he can sit next to the girl already in it. Duncan gawks at her.

"You're real? Wow."

Mindy blinks at him. 

Flinch waves at his friends until they're gone, then starts walking home. Not for the first time, he wonders why Mama Rosa had to sell the car-it was a hunk of junk, it barely ran, it wasn't even worth a hundred bucks. Why would anybody but him want it? All the same, he feels his spirts lifting, especially when he reaches into his pockets and finds his untouched peace-offering chocolate. It's the sort of moment in which he feels he's going to have to punch the sky. 

So he does.

Far, far away, in an entirely separate multiverse, a girl who goes by Wheezer pauses the movie.

"See? I was totally right. The universe 5326 one is way better than ours."

"Is that really what my hair looks like from the back?"

"Shut it, Braceface."

"I liked it."

"Gluestick, dude, you liked it 'cause you kissed Wheezer in it."

"Shut it, Flinch."

And so, they descend into hysterics, as they always do. 

And, as always, it is nothing short of perfect.


End file.
